Faction: Completely Pointless

Now that a easily accessable ferry has been made in House zu Heltzer, all forms of Faction is now completely pointless.

Faction can be obtained in many ways, such as the RFQs (repeatable faction quests), Alliance battles, quests, and the PvP Missions. However, the problem is...what do you do with that faction? Herein lies the problem...

The only use now for Faction is the Befrending... Quests, since you need to complete them to continue the storyline. I don't really consider that a use, since it does not involve spending the faction.

There are only 2 possible uses for Faction:

1. Amber/Jade

Donate 1k faction and receive a lovely gem. However, there is ONLY ONE USE for those gems.

And that is armor. If you don't like the respective armor, you have no use whatsoever for the gem.

Recently, the prices of each gem have greatly decreased, making them more difficult to sell and easier to buy, thus reducing the need for using Faction to buy the gem. (Unless you are saving up for the armor. Like me. I want that 15k Kurzick Female Ranger Sadly, that faction must be put to a different use...)

A recommended change would be to allow Amber/Jade to be used to craft ideal weapons.

2. Town Control/Elite Mission Access

Here's the crux of my argument.

When you donate 5k Faction to that little punk in your guild hall, it goes to your Alliance. But then what does that do?

It gives you control over a town. And all you get is a merchant with 20% off all items (if you took the faction and purchased Amber/Jade you'd make a much greater profit than the merchant), and a fireworks master (which is a gimmic, trust me.)

However, there are two towns where the ownership grants another thing: the ownership of House zu Heltzer and Cavalon.

Owning these towns grants anyone in that alliance [/i]and anyone who they want[/i] to enter the Elite Mission within (Urgoz's Warren for House zu Heltzer, and The Deep for Cavalon.)

Therefore, person in the controlling alliance lets you enter the Elite Mission, then what's the point of donating faction to the little punk?

Let's take the current affairs into perspective.

The most notable example of this is the ownership of Cavalon. The Crusaders [TC] own it with 6 million Luxon faction. They "ferry" people into The Deep at no charge.

Henceforth, no one will contest them. As evidence, the second-place Luxon alliance has only 2 million faction.

The Kurzick side, since last night, is similar. Komalis Protector [oOo] (The Alliance I'm in: if you've seen Syria Blackblood ferrying, that's me. ) controls House zu Heltzer and, like The Crusaders, ferries people into Urgoz's Warren for free.

[oOo] currently has 9 mil and counting. The second-place Alliance is close behind with 8.6 mil (won't discuss those politics here...mainly because I don't understand them). The third-place Alliance, however, has a mere 4 million faction.

So, why would people want to donate faction to that little punk if the end-result is available to everyone? (Well, besides the controlling guilds, heh)

Therein lies the problem: Faction is useless. The entire Faction system is broken, and needs to be fixed.

It is not broken, Anet just doesn't have time within the short development cycle of 1 year to deliver a system that should does what it is supposed to do, and so all we got is just this gimmicky system called "Factions".

Hell, the word factions itself should give you a hint just how creative they are, they reused that same root word with "Balthazar Faction"!

Well, its promoting competition in faction using, but the probelm is alliance battles and fort aspenwood/jadequarry, u dont even need to fight and u get faction, basically i guild could have 100 bots on both sides of quarry and aspenwood keep entering ajde quarry, getting the factions over and voer again, ur right, factions for people is useless to the extent of your guild, no use competing with oOo, they at least have a use to their faciton

Any Faction that can be converted to gold is not pointless. Ultimately, acquiring gold/wealth is the only point to the PVE side of the game once it's been beaten.

You wanna know what Faction is pointless, it's called Balthazaar Faction.

/agreed this Faction points system is broken ... lil guilds etc are no match for those with mils of pts ...

anyway, the only purpose is, like said above, either gold or elite missions

u can get more gold by playing/farming, once u got the armor u need, u dont care and u ll probably BUY the crafting material .. if u wanna gain the amber, that's 80000 pts the set lotsa hours of afk to get that huh (j/k)

elites ? who cares .. just buy the zodiac u need, period (ugly btw)

i made both 15k sets and now i see NO reason to care about faction battles/points/alliance

I'm with Navaros.

Belive me the 20% discount makes a big difference in the long run, also its not about just the reward you can touch and use its also about pride having your alliance name plastered on a town.

Honestly, I dont think everyone should be allowed to go to elite missions. The point of them are that the alliance who owns HzH/Cavalon get the elite missions. Both oOo and TC ferry for free, ANet might aswell make it open to public.
Anyways, I'd rather have 20% off then pay normal price. For people who buy lots of salvage/id kits, they can save lots in the long run.

They're already thinking about adding other ways into the elite missions, so it really won't matter in the end.

i agree on wut u say... faction is pointless. my alliance has 400k faction and i know we are never gona get 1mil-8mil to controll town.. so whats the point in donating? i think anet shud grow a pair of(...) and make a beter system
my idea is to giv ealliance speacial benefits on the number of faction they have i.e more npc during gvg or sumthing

its kinda pointless for low alliance to put in faction knowing there never gona take a town..

More NPCs in GvG because of more faction is the worst idea ever. Period.

Thats like saying the Redskins have the biggest salary cap in the NFL, so they get an extra player. GvG is competitive and it *is* for money.

And please, try spell/grammar check next time.

They do need to fix faction though. Definatley need more benefits for it. Unique weapons maybe, but then people would just sell them for 100k 100ecto or something stupid. Maybe customized only weapons that can be crafted for town holders? Different unique skin per town?

Yeah, faction sucks. But you know what sucks more? Locked gates in factions? [/stillpissedoff]

some guilds do aspire to own outposts for bragging rights...not all of us play a game to see rewards...we play it to enjoy playing it...winning it...

or in my case ..losing it....over and over and over

but hey I hope those air spikers can enjoy the victory with ONE FRIGGIN EYE!

Last time I checked it wasnt cool that your alliance can FF 24/7

well then Arkantos you're just not cool..and we won;t invite YOU to the parade and Bar-B-Q......

No Burger for HIM!

I'll also pass your mesage along to the current holders of the main cities and let them know you think their FF'ing is dumb so they shouldn't ferry you into the Elites.

You do realize that I said in the original post that I am in the [oOo] Alliance, which currently owns HzH?

wasn;t refering to you hun...look at the guy above who quoted my post ^^

It's not all about you :P

hehhee

I wish there were just more things do with with factions like maybe... using to trade in for weps, or convert to balthazar, maybe buy accesosries for guildhall.

I agree with the OP. Faction is pointless. Along with most of PvE. PvP also. By the way, videogames are all pointless.

you have a point there in a semi sarcastic way I think.

it's all about how you want to kill time isn't it?

are you in it for the journey or for the results?

He's also in the [oOo] Alliance.

just get anet to open the elite factions up to the public, but with an npc charging 1k for entry, with the proceeds going to the alliance.
Also 20% of the rpice of the merchants can go to the controlling alliance.
Just some suggestions as to what should be a perk of controlling a town.

Thats ok, ill remind MY alliance not to ferry YOU to urgoz

My thoughts exactly. Remember the Amber/Jade Weapons that occasionally drop? Why not?

When Anet make another access way to the elite missions the system will be pointless more and more. They have to implement more awarding features for alliances that holding cities (not just alliances that holding capitals)

When ANet makes elite missions more open, there not gonna be considered elite.

So let me get this strait......Ark thinks earning faction is uncool yet is in a cool guild that earns tons of faction?

What?

Dove = pwned

I can live with that.. So what if it is not elite.

Well, in my view, faction is pointless because of anet not really thinking the system through. By having the needed faction points to control a town be uncapped and can continually rise to infinity, you are not encouraging competition for control of towns, rather you are discouraging it. An alliance with only a few 100k faction isn’t going to bother competing with an alliance with a few million, there is no point, the gap is too wide.

Rather if anet set specific faction points needed for control of a town and that faction is actually used up on that alliance gaining control of a town, the system might actually work. Perhaps also put in a time period where someone else can’t try to gain control of the town immediately after your alliance has obtained it.

By removing faction from your alliance when you gain control of a town, and with towns having specific set faction points needed for control, along with an enforced time period of control, you have a somewhat working faction system that encourages competition for towns, even for the lesser alliances cause the towns would have a set faction amount to aim for, that allows these lesser alliances to save up and control them, rather than the silly system in place now in which if your alliance is small you can forget about it.

Your ideas are very practical indeed:

1.) Factions capped at X amount
2.) Max faction holders duke it out
3.) Winner lose all faction+holds town for 1 week
4.) Battle resumed after 1 week for a new owner

No I on the other hand am fairly sure they thought it through. In their anal mindedness they probably equated the whole situation to the following equations:

1000 factions = 1 gem
Controlling faction needed for town can range from zero to infinity
Faction decay per day = 10%

Potentially infinite money sink!

I made this observation in view of just what a$$holes the traders are (buy at 50 sell at 150? WTF!), in their warped distorted view Anet probably thought they can incite fools into wasting their times for essentially nothing; whatever they've earned would be "decayed" away the next day! Excellent! Keep those suckers hooked forever! They aren't even spending time in game farming for virgoods and fake gold, they are farming for nothing!

Good thing the community has better sense than to fall into their trap

i recently left TC alliance as it wasnt helpfull i mean all i was doing was donating my faction to keep deep open for everyone and all i was gettting was to go to deep without ferry noone was helping in missions or other players, so i left i can still e in deep through ferry and can use faction even though i dont farm it any more as i dont like the way you pvp it or the way you pve it.

as the pve quests are mundane glitched and easily done with henches or solo
i get bored and begin just farm greens.

pvp faction sucks also..

Hey anet everheard of the saying to many cooks spoil the broth.. 12vs12 is to fast moving and some times slow all you do is ru naround capping shrines trying to run away from 12 touch rangers.

why not have a 4vs4 alliance arena where kurzick and luxon can vs each other for faction of there alliance instead of balthazar faction.

better still have a 1vs1 arena to settle those petty differences

a cool idea!

they'd have to make it pretty random to avoid ppl abusing it though.

I dunno, I farm faction because Alliance Battles and Altruum Ruins are both challenging and lots of fun. And eventually I'll have a really cool set of armor to show for it.

Not pointless to me.

Faction used to control a town should be exactly that... used. It goes away and you have control of the town for [n] hours. Might be tough to implement (unless it was automatic... most faction gets "highest" town, faction total goes to zero and on until all towns are owned...)

Yeah... that's it.

After a set period of time, be it 24 hours, 12 hours, whatever... towns are automatically redistributed to the alliences in faction total order. Those alliances are reset to zero faction but have the town for the next 12/24 whatever hours.

Damn, I'm good.

hey i got an idea.. maybe anet should no be anal about all of this and actualy deiliver a good game like prophesies was... they are trying to make 2 games per yea thus makin usless things like faction... its utterly pointless

w/e i still like the game any way.

Wow, If you have every skill, upgrade, and rune unlocked, props to you. If you dont, then thats what Balth Faction is for.

I have to say I agree completly with everything on the OP Post!

However it IS a bit premature.. because we dont know exactly what ANET will do to provide this 'alternative means to access'

It maybe that a guild can pay for access using their faction points?...so if an alliance has 500k they can pay for a days access?

so until we know this 'new method' we cant yet say if it will increase the 'pointlessness' of faction gaining.

But even then!.. I do agree, faction gaining is becoming HARD WORK, and there is very little to show for it.. certainly not worth all the work.

and as has been said.. to control an outpost just for access to the merchant.. bleh, what reward is that?.. nothing really.

Hey hey. Alliance battle is FUN (even if flawed) ^^; I gain 10k luxon faction repeatedly without even noticing it (working on my luxon friend title)

I do think we should be able to do MORE things with factions.

Faction speific Weapons, alliance only quests (only in the restricted zones!), alliance only pets (i dont care if its just another pet recolor),

Heck if i become friend of the Luxon, those guys better kneel everytime i talk to them!

Hmm...

Well...

Perhaps if they ranked the alliances on the web page the way they do the GvG guilds?

Maybe if they "open" the elite missions, but make it cost "faction" to get in for anyone not in the controlling faction? (which would be what they have planned)...

You people amaze me that you so quickly throw up complaints with not one suggestion on HOW you would fix it.